Adobe Express is the first ContentCal alternative to consider if you mainly need to create graphics and schedule posts. Shortlist Planable when the missing job is collaborative content planning, Gain when several people must sign off on content, and HeyOrca when each client needs a separate working calendar. The right replacement depends on which part of ContentCal your team relied on. Maeve Social is another useful shortlist option for campaign notes and planning tables alongside publishable posts and client reviews.
ContentCal closed on March 31, 2023. Adobe identifies Content Scheduler in Adobe Express as its successor. That establishes where the product went; it does not establish that every former ContentCal workflow or old account record is available in Adobe Express. Adobe's ContentCal announcement.
Start with the job you need to replace
A publishing calendar can show that a post is due on Thursday. A production workflow also needs to show who is writing it, which asset is final, who can approve it, and whether publishing is blocked until that person agrees.
Write those requirements separately before comparing tools:
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| What your team needs | What a replacement must demonstrate |
|---|---|
| Ideas and campaign planning | Unscheduled work stays visible alongside dated posts |
| Separate brands | Each client has the right calendar, assets and access |
| Internal collaboration | Writers can edit without automatically gaining every administrative permission |
| Client sign-off | The right person can approve the final version, with the required publishing restriction |
| Reliable handoff to publishing | Each required format reaches the intended account, using a documented direct or notification workflow |
| Reporting and engagement | The needed reports and response tools are included or explicitly budgeted elsewhere |
Use a hard requirement as an elimination rule. If client approval must block publishing, an attractive calendar with comments is insufficient unless its approval controls meet that requirement.
Five ContentCal alternatives, compared by workflow
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| Alternative | Why to consider it | Important boundary |
|---|---|---|
| Adobe Express Content Scheduler | Design and publishing in one application; shared calendars for small teams | Calendar viewing and editing permissions do not establish a required sign-off gate |
| Planable | Planning and reviewing social posts alongside blogs, newsletters and other marketing content | Required approval starts on Pro; multi-level approval is an Enterprise feature |
| Gain | Review rounds across social posts, files, documents and web content | Budget for both team-member and workspace allowances; external reviewers are separate |
| HeyOrca | A working calendar per client or brand, with client-facing review | Paid calendars are the billing unit; unlimited users do not mean unlimited client calendars |
| Maeve Social | Documents and planning tables linked to social posts, with team/client review | Standard includes five users, five workspaces and 50 connections, plus approval workflows |
These distinctions come from Adobe's permissions guide, Planable's plans, Gain's plans, and HeyOrca's pricing.
Adobe Express: start here for design-led publishing
Adobe's current scheduler lists Facebook, Instagram, X, Pinterest, LinkedIn, TikTok and YouTube. Free allows one account per network and 1,000 posts per month across the supported channels; Premium raises the connection allowance to three accounts per network. The old assumption that Adobe Express cannot publish to YouTube is out of date. Content Scheduler overview.
Premium users can create three shared calendars, with one calendar per project. Free users can view a shared calendar, while Premium editors can manage connections and create, edit and publish posts. This is useful for a small team already making its assets in Express. It still leaves a specific question for approval-dependent teams: who prevents an editor publishing before the client agrees? The documented shared-calendar permissions do not establish that control. Shared calendars, access permissions.
Analytics can be accessed through the Metricool add-on, which uses a separate Metricool login. Include that dependency in your decision rather than assuming the scheduler contains a complete reporting system. See the Adobe Express review for the account and collaboration limits. Adobe's analytics guide.
Planable: consider it when the calendar includes more than social
Planable's Universal Content supports planning and reviewing blogs, newsletters, ads and other content alongside social posts. That makes it relevant when your former ContentCal calendar represented a campaign rather than a queue of captions. Planning a newsletter in the same calendar does not establish that Planable sends the email or publishes it to your CMS. Keep the final distribution step in the workflow. Universal Content.
The approval plan matters more than the entry price. Basic offers optional approval, Pro adds required approval, and Enterprise adds multiple approval levels. For example, a client sign-off requirement can rule out Basic even when your account count and post volume fit it. A team-lead-then-client sequence needs a closer look at the multi-level option. Planable pricing.
The Planable review covers the wider product. If reviewer login is the deciding factor, use the separate account-free client approvals comparison.
Gain: consider it when review rounds drive the work
Gain includes unlimited reviewers and approval workflows across its plans, with support for social posts, files, documents and web content. Starter includes three team members and six workspaces. Its published feature list includes approval history, annotations and automatic reminders. Those are relevant when a campaign involves reviewing a document or asset before scheduling the resulting social post. Gain pricing and inclusions.
Count the people doing production separately from people signing off. An agency with three staff and six client reviewers should evaluate three team-member seats plus its workspace needs, rather than treating all nine people as paid producers. Also check storage: large video files can make the storage allowance meaningful before the reviewer count does.
For a simple solo publishing queue, this review-oriented structure may be more process than you need. For a team chasing approval across email threads, it is a sensible candidate to examine. See the Gain review.
HeyOrca: consider it when every client needs a calendar
HeyOrca's paid calendars include unlimited users and ten social profiles each. Basic covers its standard approval workflow; custom approval workflows belong to Pro. Reporting, inbox and listening requirements can change the configuration, because Basic offers these as add-ons. HeyOrca pricing, plan guide.
This structure is useful when client separation is the organizing principle. Count calendars first, then identify which clients need reports or engagement work. HeyOrca permits different plans in the same account, so a publishing-only client and a reporting-heavy client need not have identical subscriptions. HeyOrca pricing FAQ.
The choice becomes less obvious if the missing requirement is a broad editorial production board. Make sure the work you need to track is visible in the actual calendar, rather than assuming every task belongs there. The HeyOrca review covers the product in more detail.
Maeve Social: connect campaign planning to posts and reviews
Maeve Social is a strong option to evaluate when campaign planning and social publishing need to stay connected. Workbench brings documents, canvas pages and content tables together, with planning rows linked to the posts they describe. Standard adds team-and-client approval workflows and includes five users, five workspaces and 50 connections, covering the three-brand, three-editor example below. Maeve Workbench, approval workflows, plan allowances.
Bring one campaign brief, its draft posts and a client review into the same workspace to see the complete handoff. Our Maeve Social review explains the broader planning and publishing setup.
Worked example: three brands and three editors
Suppose an agency has three brands, three editors and one external reviewer per brand. Each brand produces 12 ideas monthly, adapted for Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn. That is 36 destination-specific versions per brand, or 108 across the agency. This is an illustrative workload, not a product test.
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| Candidate configuration | What the example tells you |
|---|---|
| Adobe Premium shared calendars | Three brand calendars fit the documented creation allowance. Required client sign-off remains a separate question |
| Three Planable workspaces | Each brand needs three pages. Required approval, rather than this modest volume, is the reason to evaluate Pro |
| Gain Starter | Three staff and three brand workspaces fit its published member/workspace allowances; reviewers do not use those staff seats |
| Three HeyOrca paid calendars | Three profiles per brand fit the per-calendar allowance; choose each calendar's reporting and approval needs separately |
| Maeve Social Standard | Three editors, three workspaces and nine connected profiles fit the plan; team/client approvals are included |
The allowances above are documented in the sources linked for each product. Check how each service counts cross-posted content before treating the 108 destination versions as 108 billable posts. A content idea, an editor draft and a published network post can be different counting units.
Rebuild the workflow without losing track of live posts
Start from files and records you actually have. Collect current brand assets, approved copy, upcoming campaigns, social-account ownership and any saved ContentCal exports. Do not base a migration plan on recovering a closed account's data.
Use one representative campaign to check the replacement before moving everything:
- Create each brand's space and assign only the people who need it.
- Add one unfinished idea, one ready-to-review post and one final asset.
- Ask the intended reviewer to request a change, then approve the revised version.
- Check who can publish, and what happens if someone edits the approved copy.
- Confirm the destination account, format and time zone for every scheduled item.
- Reconcile the new queue with any tool currently publishing, so the same post is not scheduled twice.
Keep a simple record for each requirement: supported directly, handled manually, or not demonstrated. A manual step can be acceptable if someone owns it. An undocumented assumption about approval or publishing should not quietly become part of your operating process.
Choose Adobe when its design and calendar limits cover the real workload. Evaluate Planable for campaign-wide collaboration, Gain for review-heavy production, and HeyOrca for client-calendar operations. Keep the historical ContentCal review for the closure context; choose your replacement on today's workflow.